


(everything does fall) it must be gravity

by sebphy



Series: departures [3]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Ghost Shenanigans, happy ending for once who the fuck am i
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:22:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29546490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebphy/pseuds/sebphy
Summary: “What took you so long?”[ — ]An au pair. A gardener. A promise neither wants to break.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Series: departures [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138610
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	(everything does fall) it must be gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prestonsarchives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prestonsarchives/gifts).



> alright, i did not intend to write another instalment of the ‘departures’ series, but it did end miserably and this idea would not leave me alone. apologies for any inconsistencies between this and my last fic, i kind of whacked this whole thing out in one night. beta’d by me at 1 in the morning so apologies for inevitable typos.
> 
> (for hana, because i feel like we both deserve a happy ending for once)
> 
> CW: meal skipping, detailed overdose mentions

Two months.

Jamie Taylor has been doing this for two months.

At nine o’clock in the morning, she wakes.

She visits the plants. The pothos on the bedroom windowsill. The fern on the dresser. The lilies on the kitchen counter, the English ivy in the bathroom, the schefflera by the doorway. Every morning, Jamie devotes at least half an hour of her time to check up on them. Dance fingertips across the leaves, or blow away the dust that has settled overnight. She waters them, too, with less routine. Every plant has an individual need - every plant is unique. Jamie cares for them like they are her children, and in a way they are, the only other living things in the apartment besides her.

At ten o’clock in the morning, she makes breakfast.

Once upon a time, she did not have to do this. Once upon a time Jamie would wake to the smell of honey or toast or fried bacon and the sound of quiet singing from the kitchen. Now, most days, it’s a banana, or an apple, some lowly, bruised fruit that she’s picked up with the grocery shopping a week prior.

At eleven o’clock in the morning, she washes.

Of course, she has to unplug the bath first, watch the water left from the night before stream obnoxiously down the pipes. This, Jamie thinks to herself every day, is the worst part of the morning. Yet she does it, without fail, every single time, before stepping in to the shower and leaning her forehead against the achingly cold tile wall. Sometimes, she will cry - other times, she will wash with a resolute frown on her face, icy trickles cascading down her spine before she shuts off the stream of water ten minutes later.

At midday, she walks.

To the library, most often. She’s picked up quite an affinity for fiction recently, her previous taste in literature being more around the gardening guidebook type. Jamie visits the library so often they begin to recognise her there. Bev, the manager, has started keeping a list of novels Jamie has read, and novels she believes Jamie would enjoy. Jamie, in return, brings her plants every so often. In the sixty three days she has had this routine, she has stopped by the library on thirty seven occasions, carrying a pot twelve times. Always something small that Jamie knows Bev can slide onto a windowsill, or the top of a shelf, or the reception counter. “My favourite’s the ZZ plant,” Bev shares on one occasion, and Jamie offers a small grin.

At three o’clock, she sleeps.

Not in the bed, generally. Once or twice Jamie has found herself waking up in a quiet corner of the library after a particularly good book. Other times, when her noon walk had turned into a jog which has turned into a run, Jamie collapses home onto the sofa a sweaty mess and doesn’t wake until a few hours later. If she was shopping, she folds down onto the carpet among paper bags and passes out with her head balanced on the sofa armrest. 

At six o’clock, she makes dinner.

Lunch is an activity which has slowly phased out of Jamie’s life as the weeks go by. Most evenings finds her heating something plastic and packaged in the microwave rather than engaging in cooking herself. Something small, like a preheated Shepherd’s pie, or sausage rolls. The insatiable hunger Jamie was famous for at Bly Manor was bound to go away with age anyway, but it doesn’t stop Owen stuffing her full of cakes and pastries when she visits out of sheer concern. He can’t do much when he’s not there, and he knows that, reminding her over the phone every so often that she has to eat. Jamie’s visits to Owen get less and less over the sixty three days, her calls too, and she finds her weight dropping pound by pound despite the regular meals. She should be worried, she knows, but she can’t bring herself to care, not anymore. 

At seven o’clock, she tidies.

She busies herself with the dusting, vacuuming, every single day, until the whole flat is spotless, the countertop gleaming and the carpet flawless. She checks the plants again, sometimes turning pots a centimetre to the left or right to ensure an even distribution of sunlight to the ones that need it. Every night Jamie cleans and cleans until her bones ache and her forehead is gleaming with sweat. 

At nine o’clock…

Well, she does what she has to. Fills the sink. Fills the bath. Stares, unblinking at the smooth surface of water, hopeful every time. She gets lost, sometimes, in her own reflection, only jolted out of her trance by the painful twist in her neck. Jamie leaves the water every night, ready to be emptied in the morning. She watches the mirror, too, searching for a blue eye or a blonde hair, and never finding either. 

Then, finally, at ten o’clock, Jamie sleeps.

She has been doing this for two months.

Waking. Washing. Walking. Staring.

Sixty three days, a routine built to keep her afloat. Routine, Jamie finds, is important. Sometimes it can save your life. Save you from finding a spare minute to think too hard or cry too long. Save you from the box of prescription sleeping pills that you know lurks in the bathroom cabinet, and you know are strong. 

Jamie wakes on the sixty fourth day to find her asparagus fern has died. Somehow, despite her daily morning care, she has overwatered it, and now it sits limply in its pot looking awfully sorry for itself. She cries as she pours the soil into the bin and the plant follows. 

The fruit bowl is empty. Jamie skips breakfast. She knows there is bread in the freezer, chooses to ignore it. Traipses into the bathroom.

The sink, she notes with mild discomfort, is empty, and she does not remember letting the water down herself. The water in the bath is still very much there, though, and Jamie lets her eyes linger as she pulls the plug. Shimmering green eyes stare back up at her, and she pushes herself up with a sigh. 

There is no shower today. Jamie washes her face, for routine’s sake, but she cannot find it in herself to strip off her clothes and pretend the freezing water is soothing. She splashes her cheeks and rushes out of the bathroom as soon as she can, her arms swinging at her sides as she strides to the sofa, holds her head in her hands.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Jamie mumbles to herself.

Having skipped breakfast and a shower, Jamie decided it’s important she does not neglect her walk today. She doesn’t know where she is going until she finds herself staring at a gravestone.

The cemetery is one of Jamie’s less frequent haunts. There is no one for her here, not in Vermont. The worst days, though, where it seems like every aspect of Jamie’s life is fighting against her, can be bettered by sitting on the slightly mossy white bench at the head of the graveyard and staring out over the headstones and statues. A few times, Jamie has brought flowers for the graves that look most neglected. One, she notes, is for a four year old child. She had cried, when she first saw that, laying a single daffodil down in front of the headstone, the yellow startlingly bright against the dry grass. 

Today, Jamie does not stay long. Something about the air around her is heavy, or heavier than usual. The sky is clear, but it is grey, and the raindrops that fall soon after her arrival are not much of a surprise.

It’s a long walk home, forty five minutes at least, and the rain appears to be beating down heavier and heavier the more Jamie walks, the more she speeds up. By the time she is locking the door behind her, she is shivering, shaking her hair in a vain attempt at drying herself. The world really is against her today, and she starts to accept it as she slumps down on the sofa, closing her eyes without removing her soaked clothes.

When Jamie wakes up at quarter to ten, she barely registers it. Strolls to the bathroom. Opens the cabinet. Stares, thinks.

A promise, whispered under a duvet three years ago.

_“You promise you’ll keep going? After me?”_

_“Yes.”_

Another one, sixty five days ago.

 _“I want you to promise me. You live your life. You keep our— your— business, wrap those bouquets, arrange those wreaths, and_ live. _And when it’s time, I’ll be here. In the next life.”_

_“The next life.”_

But, God, how long can she really do this? Repeat the same routine like clockwork every day whilst she slowly stops seeing the beauty in the world, stops recognising the worn face and bitter expression she sees in the mirror?

She’s reaching for the pills before she knows it.

Carries the box out of the bathroom.

Opens the lid.

There is not a lot of thought going into Jamie’s actions as she pours small blue ovals into her hand. She is insensible to the weight of this action, has been to most things as the weeks have passed. 

Jamie barely registers what her body is doing as she tilts her head back. She feels as though she is watching herself from the corner of the room rather than moving her limbs of her own accord. _Pretty peaceful, then._

“Jamie.”

Jesus _Christ._

She is snapped back before she knows it, her fist clenched, her other hand clutching her knee, eyes wide. She is frozen, she realises, just like someone else she once watched stand in a doorway with a shoulder bag and a caught expression on her face.

Jamie turns.

Blue eyes. Red dress. Hair so blisteringly blonde it practically fucking _sparkles._

And Jamie is frozen in place, she is aware, but she can’t move, until suddenly she is dropping the sleeping pills to the carpet, standing on shaky legs. She swallows hoarsely. Moves as though to take one step forward, then decides against it.

“Dani?”

And Dani is _smiling,_ blue eyes shimmering, dimples forming as Jamie practically falls into her arms. Jamie, who is sobbing like she hasn’t sobbed in sixty four days. 

“You’re real?” she chokes out, and finds herself internally critiquing that _that_ is the first real sentence she says, but Dani doesn’t seem to care. Just strokes her hair, shushing her gently, whispering “So real. So real, Jamie. I’m here.”

They’re kissing, Jamie vaguely notes, and Dani tastes the same as she always did, mixed with the salt of both their tears. They are _kissing,_ touching. 

“How… How is this…” Jamie breaks apart to ask the question that has been bouncing around her brain since she turned around on the sofa what feels like a million years ago.

“Gravity,” Dani grins slyly. “Turns out, I can make my own.”

They kneel, staring at each other. Jamie is smiling wonderingly, pills long forgotten.

She sighs.

“What took you so long?”

* * *

There were rules, Dani explains. Rules someone else created in that lake centuries before her. Rules that were hers to bend the second that fateful exchange happened.

_You, me, us._

“She had her gravity. It was… relentless. Dragged everyone in, they couldn’t leave. But she’s gone now. I’m not her, Jamie, I’m just _me,_ and I didn’t even know until I was there.”

“In the lake?” Jamie asks in disbelief.

“I can’t explain. It felt… like when you wake up from a nap and everything’s too bright and foggy. I didn’t even try to leave, for the first week. Didn’t occur to me, then I figured I’d wander.”

“And now you’re here.”

“I am.”

“I don’t understand. Aren’t you…”

“Dead?” Dani mumbles.

Jamie shakes her head, then nods, frowning.

“Yes. But it’s my gravity now. I do what I want with it.”

“Why didn’t you say sooner?”

Dani looks crestfallen, and Jamie wishes she could pick up her words and shove them back down her throat, but it’s too late. Before she can utter an apology, Dani speaks.

“I felt selfish. It wouldn’t be fair to fuck up your life just because it’s a bit lonely being dead.”

“You’re not fucking anything up. This is the best day of my goddamn life,” Jamie is crying again, and Dani is reaching out to stroke her cheeks, her fingers impossibly cold.

“I think I am, Jamie. But you were going to… And I couldn’t…”

“I know, I promised. I’m sorry.”

Dani embraces her, arms wrapping around shaking shoulders. It feels soft and solid at the same time and Jamie only cries harder.

“Don’t apologise. I’m here. Jamie.”

 _Jamie,_ Dani thinks. _It really has always been you, hasn’t it?_

* * *

At nine o’clock in the morning, Jamie wakes. 

The first thing she sets eyes on is the asparagus fern on the dresser. New, and healthier than ever. The second thing she sees is the door, open just a crack. 

Dani is in the kitchen, a baggy yellow shirt hanging from her shoulders, stirring a pot of what smells like porridge. She grins. “Morning.”

It’s then, Jamie realises, it is possible to fall in love more than once with the same person. 

And if this is what gravity has to offer, she fucking _loves_ it.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to comment if you would so like <3


End file.
